The Perth Artifactory

Son Of Swarf-O-Mat: Work on our new CNC machine begins!

skot — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 01:34:54 +0000

Construction of a new CNC machine has begun under the working title “Son Of Swarf-O-Mat”. This will be a 3 axis ‘bot; with a moving X-table, fixed Y-gantry and mobile Z attached to Y. Our existing CNC machine, Swarf-O-Mat (senior), will cut all parts from aluminium, prototyping in MDF first. Last night John started design work on NEMA-17 to NEMA-23 adapter plates to affix steppers to the linear bearings, and Jason & SKoT designed and cut two connector plates which allow us to bolt the Y and Z bearings into a single unit. Prototyping in MDF proved useful – we discovered our initial design made access to some of the bolt holes impractical, so a Mk2 with improved access and wider counter sink recesses resulted in short order. Hurrah for iterative design and rapid robot-assisted prototyping!

Summer Slowdown

jason — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 00:46:21 +0000

The Artifactory has been a little quiet of late. It is that time of year with Christmas, New Year, personal travels and hacker travels – such as the contingent from the Artifactory spending the last month visiting the hackerspaces on the east coast before heading to Linux Conference Australia.

This quiet period is likely to continue this week given the weather forecast of hot, hotter and hottest. The Artifactory is a factory unit that does a good job of trapping heat. Even the most committed hacker will find cooler place to spend some time, so if you want to visit it is worth checking first by dropping a line to the Google Group (you will need to join the group first).

This week’s Arduino U has an 8pm start on Wednesday. It will be a more casual event, details on Facebook or to the calendar entry to the right of this page. No charge for visitors this week given the anticipated casualness of the events – although donations in the honour box are always appreciated.

Happy hacking and stay hydrated.

Learning Swarf-O-Mat

jason — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 13:14:53 +0000

For those who don’t know the Swarf-o-mat is the CNC router built by Skot.

This Saturday, 14 January 2012, Skot will be taking a small group, three to four people, through the process of using V-Carve and cutting out something on the Swarf-o-mat.

If you want to be want to be one of the few to learn and participated this weekend, either leave a message on the Facebook event or reply to the discussion in the Google Group. Both require joining something.

NoizeMaschin!!#7 – Tues 17 Jan, 7:30pm

skot — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 07:07:05 +0000

The Artifactory’s NoizeMaschin!! series of experimental and new music concerts starts the new year with a clamorous celebration of all that was musically odd in Perth during 2011 with the inaugural PAWPAW (Perth Audio Weird Performance AWards) night of glamour, glitz, dubious prizes, cheering for winners and commiserating with runners-up in addition to our usual line up of strange sounds and lasers. You can Vote for your favourite acts. Visit the Facebook Event Page.

Rapture #3 – Sat 17th Dec 9pm

skot — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 09:12:29 +0000

EBM/Dubstep/Industrial/Goth – Dark Dance and genre-friends. Industrial in an Industrial Park! Doors open 9pm, Bar d’Factory onsite, lasers, LED poi and more! More info on the Facebook Page.

NoizeMaschin!! Residency #1

skot — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 07:52:22 +0000

NoizeMaschin!! seeks all musicians and sound artists to apply for a three month residency at The Artifactory Hackerspace, designed to promote collaborative relationships between hackers, builders and musical performers in Perth. More Info on the NoizeMaschin!! website.

The Artifactory on MAKE: Live

Daniel Harmsworth — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 12:02:00 +0000

The Artifactory was featured on MAKE: Live‘s Hackerspaces Roadshow! A huge thanks to everyone who contributed to the documenting effort (We managed to upload ~17Gb of footage!), to John Baichtal for recommending us and to MAKE: Live hosts Matt Richardson and Becky Stern.

Arduino U – Gantry Crane

jason — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 13:20:51 +0000

After a successful demonstration at the Curtin Robofair (this is an assumption), the gantry crane will be in the space. At Arduino University on 7 December 2011 at 1930 a quick presentation about the gantry crane. We’ll discuss some of the trials and tribulations of the design and construction. Some of the laughs from the Robofair (yet another assumption). And a brief on the coding.

From 2030 those involved with the gantry crane will answer questions as well as the usual general hacking on Arduino.

There will be help for you to set up your computer for Arduino development, if needed.

$10 for non-members of the Artifactory. Bring own Arduino and laptop. There maybe a limited number of Arduinos available for sale too.

Facebook to RSVP (not essential, but it is nice to know numbers beforehand).

Photo: prototype of crane motor housing in acrylic.

Curtin Robofair this Sunday

jason — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 13:04:38 +0000

This Sunday the Artifactory will be at the Curtin Robofair. 10am to 2pm.

A new Artifactory robot will be on display (assuming it is finished). The gantry crane will be strung up at height menacing the visitors with a shark. A plush toy shark. So probably not that menacing.

Coil Driver Kit Available

Daniel Harmsworth — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 05:46:06 +0000

We’ve made the Artifactory Coil Driver Kit, the boards we used to build the Arcophone, available for pre-order here. We are planning on releasing 100 kits in mid-December based on the new v2.0 driver design.

The new driver boards can do everything the v1.x boards could and more, we’ve changed out the ubiquitous 555 timer oscillator with a more versatile one based on the MCP6542 dual comparator, this means you can break in a tweak the oscillators characteristics in interesting ways, including feeding it an analogue signal on the PWM threshold pin to make a plasma speaker!

Design files & documentation are available on Github